


Dare

by miitgaanar



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 18:03:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18997732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miitgaanar/pseuds/miitgaanar
Summary: When Captain America tells you to run, you run.  No questions asked.But when his pursuer turns out to be pursuing you, there's not much else you can do but keep on running—and pray you can hide.





	Dare

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this YEARS ago after having an incredibly vivid dream involving Bucky. To this day, it is still one of the clearest dreams I've ever had, and one of only three I had that featured Bucky. This one was by far the best one, though.

_“Split up.  He’s after me, not you.  I’ll draw him away.”_

Cassie did as she was told, running down the street as Steve Rogers ran in the opposite direction.  Why shouldn’t she do as he says?  He was Captain America, after all.  But now, as her feet pounded the pavement, her breathing harsh and ragged, she could hear another set of much heavier and faster footfalls behind her and gaining fast.

Maybe she should’ve stuck with Cap.

A casual lunch with Steve had quickly descended into chaos when a man dressed in black shot out the floor to ceiling window of the corner café, crashing right through the bullet hole-riddled surface and peppering the patrons with thick shards of glass.  He landed heavily on the glass covered marble floor, his combat boots oddly silent as he stalked through the throng of panicked customers.  Steve moved fast, quickly shielding Cassie from any flying debris, but as he tugged her up from where she had dropped to the floor for cover, her eyes locked with their assailant’s.  Had Steve not been pulling her along to get them out the side door of the café, she was sure that haunted gaze would have kept her frozen where she laid.

Steve didn’t exactly have time to explain as they ran through the streets, but he seemed strangely calm about all of this.  He didn’t even seem that surprised by what was going on.  In fact, if she didn’t know any better, she would have sworn he seemed a bit  _relieved_.  He barely gave her time to really think about it, pushing her down a side street to get as far away from the pandemonium as possible.  She certainly wasn’t going to stick around to find out how he knew this guy was after him, she could find that out later when all of this was over.

At least, that was the plan before she realized halfway down that block that Steve wasn’t the one being pursued.

Panic quickly turned her blood to ice as she ran, making her head a hazy mess as she tried to think of a way to lose him.  She was by no means even a recreational runner and was working off of pure adrenaline to keep herself moving.  This guy would catch up with her in mere seconds if she didn’t think of something fast.  The sound of a car speeding down the street caught her attention and, without allowing herself to give it much thought, quickly bolted across the street and in front of the speeding car.  The driver slammed on his brakes and leaned on the horn as he came to a screeching halt, yelling a string of curses out his window in her general direction—but abruptly fell silent once her pursuer decided to use the hood of his car as a springboard to keep his momentum going.

The stunt hadn’t stopped him like she’d hoped, but it had bought her a precious few seconds as she rounded the corner of the block, spying the concrete dugout in the front yard of someone’s home that led down to their basement.  Feeling as if her lungs were a breath away from collapsing, she quickly hopped the chest height iron fence separating their yard from the sidewalk and nearly fell in her rush to get down the stairs that led to the basement door.  She tried the knob, cursing softly when it wouldn’t budge, only just barely resisting the urge to bang on the door and yell for help.  

Out of time and options, she crouched at the bottom of the stairs, leaning back against the metal door to take some of the weight off of her burning calves.  She pressed a hand tightly over her mouth in an attempt to muffle her desperate gasps for air, panicked tears blurring her vision.  Her lungs burned in protest, her thigh muscles twitching with the effort to hold her weight as she peaked over the edge of the concrete to see the sidewalk, just in time for her pursuer to come into view.  

Cassie hadn’t gotten a good look at him back at the café, but now she could say with some certainty that she was in deep,  _deep_  shit.  His dark, shoulder length hair was disheveled, his cold, calculating eyes darting quickly from one side of the street to the other as he looked for any sign of her.  His scruff covered jaw was clenched tightly in concentration as he scanned the area, his lips set in a firm, thin line, his nostrils flaring slightly with each breath.  She noticed that he wasn’t even winded from his pursuit, and she wasn’t sure if it was her own fault for being out of shape, or if she was dealing with someone on par with Steve.  The very thought caused the knot in her stomach to tighten sharply.

She sank down a bit further on her haunches as she watched him, sweat soaking the hair at the base of her scalp and tickling the skin.  He turned sharply to look behind him, causing her lungs to seize up in her chest as she caught a glimpse of his left arm.  The sunlight glinted off of metal where there should have been flesh, the soft  _whir_  of grinding gears reaching her ears as the arm moved.  

_What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck where the fuck is Steve what the fuck—_

In one swift, sudden movement, he leapt over the fence that separated them.  Before she could so much as open her mouth to let out a scream, he was already upon her, a metal hand pressed firmly to her lips as the other pressed the edge of a cool, sharp dagger to the sensitive flesh of her throat.  She whimpered softly against the cold metal hand, her back pressed painfully hard against the door as he crammed himself into the tight space.  Crouching above her, he pressed the knife just a fraction further into her delicate flesh, stopping just short of drawing blood.  A warning.

He did nothing for a moment, merely sat there looming awkwardly over her in the small dugout of concrete steps, but the fast approaching footsteps made it clear why he had hid with her instead of dragging her out of her hiding place.

And if the footsteps didn’t do the job, then the voice that accompanied them did.

“Cass?  Cass, you here?  Shit…”

Cassie’s entire body tightened at the sound of Steve’s voice, and her captor knew it, felt it.  His ice-blue gaze immediately locked with hers and he pressed himself further against her, his forehead nearly flush against her own.  He knew she couldn’t get out from under him, knew he had effectively silenced her with that knife pressed harshly against the warm flesh of her throat—and yet those haunting eyes dared her to do something, anything, to get Steve’s attention.  They dared her to defy him, dared her to let fear control her, dared her to fight back.

They dared her to face him on her own.

Trembling, Cassie kept her gaze firm, refusing to look away as he stared her down.  Despite her better judgement, despite the rational part of her brain  _screaming_  for her to make noise, to bang on the metal door, to do  _something_  to get Steve’s attention, she remained still, silent, staring down the man who held her captive.

His brow twitched upward slightly at her silent defiance, the first flicker of emotion she had seen on his face since she had locked eyes with him back in the café.

With another muttered curse, she heard Steve run down the street, still intent on saving her from whatever hell he had unwittingly unleashed upon her, and she felt her captor’s body relax slightly, the muscles that had been pulled taut allowed a moment’s reprieve.  

Her own chest tightened with every footfall that took Steve further and further away from her.  By the time he was far enough away that she could no longer hear his shoes against the pavement, her chest felt empty and hollow, her throat painfully dry as she met the hard gaze of her captor, realizing with a sharp pang of panic that she had just signed her own death warrant.  And for what?  To prove to the man who practically straddled her hips that she wasn’t as afraid of him as he thought.

_Boy, what a load of shit that is._

After he was sure that Steve was gone and was not returning, he eased himself off of her, pulling her to her feet, but kept her back pressed against the metal door, his gaze locked with her own.  He slowly removed the metal hand from her mouth—the knife still pressed harshly against her throat—moving it down to her shoulder to hold her in place.  His grip was firm, but, surprisingly enough, not painful.

“Why?” the stranger finally rasped, his voice painfully hoarse with what sounded like severe disuse.  “He could've saved you.  Why didn’t you try to get his attention?”

Cassie swallowed hard, her breathing rapid and slightly panicked as she dared a glance toward the street, hoping against hope to see Steve double back. “You would have killed me.”

He continued to stare down at her, that metal hand suddenly knotting itself in her hair and tugging harshly, a soft whimper slipping from her lips as he forced her to meet his gaze.  “That’s not why.”

Cassie’s blood roared in her ears, her hands fruitlessly reaching up to tug at his arm in an attempt to get him to loosen his grip.  Strangely enough, his grip  _did_  loosen on its own.  He didn’t release her, but it was enough to keep the pained tears that welled up in her eyes from falling. 

She blinked up at him in confusion, stunned into brief silence before remembering his question, his demand.  “Because he knows you.  He said you were after him.  That’s why I ran the other way.”  

His eyes softened, widening a fraction, his nostrils flaring as his jaw clenched and his grip on her hair tightened again, causing a pained hiss to slip through her teeth.  The hand that still held the knife to her throat trembled ever so slightly, and Cassie dared to speak again, her voice seeming to break him out of whatever reverie he had slipped into.  “Why did you come after me?”

He sighed sharply through his nose, finally removing the knife from her throat and sheathing it somewhere at his side.  “He protected you at the café.  He pulled you out of there to get you to safety.  You meant more to him than stopping me did at that moment.”  He paused, seeming to gauge her reaction before continuing.  “You know him.  And I need someone that knows him.”

Cassie quirked an eyebrow in confusion as he released his grip on her hair, only for it to grasp at her forearm and tug her forward as he climbed the stairs, quickly scanning the street for anyone as he pulled her in front of him, her arm twisted harshly behind her back.

Biting her lip, she dared to ask one more question, one that she had a feeling would explain everything about her current predicament. “Who are you?”

The man behind her tensed as he pushed her forward, his grip on her arm painfully tight as they headed in the opposite direction that Steve had run in.  “That’s what I need you to help me find out.”


End file.
